Supersymmetry Models in High-Energy Physics
Summary
Supersymmetry posits a fundamental symmetry between bosons and fermions, offering a solution to the hierarchy problem by enforcing cancellations of quantum corrections to the Higgs mass. In its minimal realisation—the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM)—each Standard Model particle acquires a superpartner, and gauge coupling unification emerges naturally at high energy scales. Variants differ in how supersymmetry breaking is mediated, including gravity-mediated, gauge-mediated and anomaly-mediated mechanisms. Extensions to supergravity incorporate the graviton’s superpartner, the gravitino, and allow the embedding of supersymmetry within a gravitational framework linked to string theory. Techniques employing nilpotent superfields have streamlined model building by encoding non-linear supersymmetry breaking and enabling de Sitter vacua. Cosmological applications explore the role of supersymmetric fields in inflation and dark matter production. Although direct signals have not yet appeared at current colliders, supersymmetric models continue to guide searches for new particles, inform dark matter candidates and shape theoretical approaches to unification and quantum gravity.
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Supersymmetry Models in High-Energy Physics publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in supersymmetry models in high-energy physics across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Supersymmetry (SUSY): A symmetry relating bosons and fermions, predicting partner particles for known fields.
Supergravity: A theoretical framework combining supersymmetry with general relativity, featuring the gravitino as the graviton’s superpartner.
Gravitino: The spin-3/2 fermionic superpartner of the graviton, central to cosmology and supersymmetric phenomenology.
Goldstino: The massless fermion arising from spontaneous supersymmetry breaking, which is absorbed into the gravitino’s longitudinal mode when local supersymmetry is broken.
Nilpotent superfield: A constrained superfield whose square vanishes, used to describe non-linear realisations of supersymmetry breaking.
References
- On energy and particle production in cosmology: the particular case of the gravitino. Journal of High Energy Physics (2024).
- Goldstino condensation at large N. European Physical Journal C (2023).
- Gravitino Swampland Conjecture. Physical Review Letters (2021).
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